Star Search
by Lettered
Summary: one-shot ficlet for Emily's Quest. A reason for Teddy returning so suddenly at the end of the book to declare his love to Emily. (features Teddy and Dean)


Dean Priest had rolled the magazine so that he could hold the page with one hand, his crooked shoulder lounged against the frame of the open door. He was frowning, the expression obviously a reaction to his reading, not to the sweat pouring down his forehead and making damp spots at his lower back, or to the dust and sand sweeping through the threshold of his bungalow. It was only just past the hottest time of day; for pages thirty-two to thirty-six the sun had been boiling, though now it was nearing the horizon and cooling into an inferno of red. He had meant to walk for a bit, to watch the sunset, to read these pages by moonlight, as such a thing as this should be read. On the way out, however, a word had leapt out at him, then another, then another, and he had been held right there, riveted, and had read the whole thing under the beat of the sun without even putting his hat on or closing the door. He simply hadn't been able to wait.

It was the story of his life. He could never wait long enough, and when he tried to reach for what he wanted too soon, he inevitably got burned.

Dean's frown deepened. Sighing, he turned back into the cool interior of the bungalow where the shadows were playing and lengthening, and tossed the magazine carelessly on his desk. He didn't take too much care where it landed--Amon was used to Si Priest subscribing to several women's magazine's, though he never really understood it. Instead, Dean rifled through the mail and letters on the writing desk, and at last found what he was looking for: a letter, all the way from Prince Edward Island.

Dean balanced the letter in his hand for several moments, and then tapped it once and then twice again on the smooth teak of the Egyptian desk, as if trying to determine the value of the letter as another test a coin. At last, with a sigh, he grabbed the filigred handle of the letter opener and tore the enevelope open.

Hungry green eyes scoured the letter, moving through the looping affected script as if moving through a junk yard looking for a gem. Upon reciept of the other letters from his cousin, Sarah Priest, he had made himself methodically read through the whole thing top to bottom, learning all about cousin Jerry Priest's this and Susan Jones Priest's that. It was all very tedious, but it was worth it, for news of Emily. It was punishment, for needing to hear news of Emily, and for being such a coward as to have to go through Sarah Priest to get it.

Oh, Sarah was a good girl. Dean had always liked her, despite the fact that most of the rest of the Priest clan ignored him and annoyed him. It hardly bothered Dean any more; the world ignored and annoyed him, and who was he to complain? But Sarah had always been kind, and he and her brother, Everret, had been close for a scant few years.

Before Emily, Dean had never entertained thoughts of starting a family; he had always preferred the idea of being a wealthy benefactor, a sort of rich uncle who might spoil someone worthy rotten and then disappear without having to deal with the consequences. But Everrett was another thing again; young enough to be his nephew, yes, but quick and thoughtful enough to not only understand Dean's wit, but to make something of himself. Seeing this, Dean had taken on Everrett as a sort of protege, and the two of them had been quite thick, for a while. But they had fallen out--it was Dean's habit, to fall out with people.

The two only spoke now if forced into by family meetings--but Sarah had remained friendly. She had become used to the dry, hunchbacked relation when he first started to come around and boasted he would put her brother through medical school, and she seemed to understand--when no one, not even Dean or Everrett understood--why Dean and Everrett fought. She didn't even hold a grudge that Dean never made good the promise, and her brother had to work four years solid to make the money for school. Dean was pretty sure Sarah felt sorry for him, and he had let her feel it. It was handy, he supposed, to be on good terms with at least one person in the world.

And so it was that Dean had come to write Sarah a letter five months ago, on a night very much like this, after throwing aside a magazine much like the one he had thrown aside tonight. "I grow restless, and find myself thinking of home," he had written her. "Tell me all the news--yes; this is old Jarback sending for it, and no, he isn't off his head. Pretend for a moment that I actually care what that ridiculous old witch Mrs. Nat Tolliver is wearing in Shrewsbury, or what that old dame Janet Enderson is saying at Priest Pond. Tell me whether Old Kelly is remarried yet and whether old lady Kent in Blair Water still has a Jocasta complex.

"--On second thought don't tell me; you don't know what a Jocasta complex is, and I hope you don't find out, and much better than her couldn't be said of me. But I would dearly like to hear if that fool Evelyn Blake in Shrewsbury is married, because she once played a sour trick on someone I know and I'd like her to be married to the most boring, fat old fogey on the face of the earth. Can the Priests arrange that, by the way? You would think we could, with the way we parade around. Anyway, cousin, as you can see I suffer greatly; I am in the most horrid of horrid states: I am terrifically bored.

"There now, I'll stop trying to affect idle disdain and tell the truth: I long for a bit of home. There is no autumn in Egypt, only sand. Even gossip--especially gossip--would do this old soul good. It would remind me of why I left that back water old biddy infested island.

"Love,

"Dean

"P.S. (There's no use calling it names, is there? You are shaking your head just now, knowing I love dear P.E.I. more than ever. I always hated the way you could see right through me, you know, that's why I never once brought you sweets the way I did for little Janet Priest. I know you always wondered.)"

The letter had all been a lie, of course. He had wanted to find out about Emily, plain and simple, and hadn't had the guts to write to anyone closer to her or to ask about her straight out. In the end he had gone back and crossed out the portion about Mrs. Kent and the babble about complexes, afraid that it was too obvious (he had also erased the question about Evelyn Blake; he didn't want Sarah guessing at which 'friend' had been tricked by her and being thus remained of his whole affair with Emily). But that didn't mean Dean didn't want news. No, it meant precisely the opposite.

He didn't understand why he had never heard of her marriage, why he had never heard even a wisp of anything about her and that Kent fellow. As much as he had tried to evacuate all star-thoughts from his mind, Dean had always been subconsciously waiting for it, from the day Emily had broken her engagement to him. At first he had been glad that he heard nothing of his star's impending nuptials. It pleased him that she didn't turn from him and run into the arms of her true lover; in his bitter, twisted way, he even took pleasure in the idea that the match made in heaven was earth-bound after all, that there was trouble in paradise, that Kent wasn't all that she had imagined and that his star would come running back to him.

After a while, though, the bite had cooled. He no longer fantasized about Emily returning to his arms, and in fact there were entire days when he did not think of her--though there was never a night he did not dream of her. But in the past couple months, an itch had grown, and as much as he tried to ignore it, it continued to grow. He paid closer attention to mail from Prince Edward Island. He even went so far as to subscribe to not one, but several of the magazines she wrote for. He reconnected with contacts he probably wouldn't have bothered with otherwise, all--in his proud, cowardly way, trying to find the answers to the itch: What of Emily? What was she doing now? And why, by God, was that fool of a Kent taking so long to pop the question?

He'd heard about the Ilse fiasco--oh yes, he had heard. But Ilse had realized who she really loved and married him short year after jilting her betrothed. Emily had realized who she really loved, jilted her fiance--and then dilly-dallied about these past four years.

She wasn't happy about it, Dean knew that. Her story in the magazine tonight, for instance. Since _The_ _Moral of the Rose _had been published, Emily wrote less and less stories, and had since published another book, but the ones to which Dean had subscribed were quite prestigious, and still held her work from time to time. And the stories were her same old style: light, inspired, true-to-life, poetic and fulfilling. And yet . . . there was an edge in some of them now that hadn't been there before. They were still happy--he remembered her telling him once that she had vowed long ago never to end a story on a sad note--but there was still that something . . .

Something in her life was missing. Dean could feel it in his bones. Emily might belong to Kent; she might be connected to him in ways a hunchbacked old Priest twenty years her senior might never understand--but Dean there was one thing Dean knew in the world, and that was Emily. He belonged to her and was connected to her in all the ways she was to that blasted boy; it was just Dean's ties weren't reciprocal. Who said bonds had to be reciprocal? They just were, and that was that. And through them he could feel Emily longing, hoping . . . and worst of all, despairing.

She wasn't lost--not the way she had been after her accident, after burning her book (Dean winced at this thought), after . . . courting that deformed, obsessed suitor (Dean winced harder at his own words). No, she had her writing, no thanks to him, and she had her health; she had New Moon and to some extent she had regained Ilse. But her life was unfulfilled as yet; she was still longing for more; she did not yet have her heart's desire. Her heart's desire was that fool Teddy, and by God, it had always pained him for her not to have what she wanted.

Dean blinked with the sudden realization. The itch, the impatient tick at the back of his mind, had suddenly blossomed, finally revealing itself to him: he wanted Emily to find true love. It was trite, and to an extent, it made him bitter;--true love could have been hers so easily, if only she had let herself feel it for him. But it didn't work like that, he knew. The world was never so simple.

Feeling a warm, calm, almost placid sensation suffuse his veins, Dean laid the letter back on the teak writing desk and walked out the--still open--door. Night had fallen gently, almost reverently, and the rose hues were still dying on the backdrop of deep jazz blue. Breathing in the cool air of the Egyptian night, revelling in the way it could still feel mystical to him, Dean looked up. There, twinkling near the horizon, just above the strip of dusky red, was the first evening star.

Dean looked at it and felt at peace. He wanted his Star to belong to someone else so that she was not his star any more. He wanted to be able to look at a night sky and not think of her. He wanted to spend a night in a realm as enchanted as this and for once not dream of her. He wanted her to marry, so he could move on.

Contemplating this, Dean sighed. There would still be times, he knew, when he would want her, desire her, see her splendid form still before him and see her eyes twinkling at him in that way she had of hers. He would never be completely free of such a creature; he would never stop loving her. But he could stop obsessing--and perhaps there was a way to do just that thing.

Suddenly resolute, Dean turned back into the bungalow, his steps no longer dreamy, but quick and decisive. Approaching the desk, he stepped over the envelope that had carelessly fluttered to the floor. Sarah Priest and he had kept up a bit of a correspondence, her giving him P.E.I. gossip and him sending a few caustic remarks about 'those island gooseberries' and a bit of sub-text that always made her laugh and feel strangely warmed and strangely sad at the same time. Only Dean had the power to do that to people. This time she had written that Mrs. Henry Blake was dying, that Rhoda Stuart had had a little boy, and that Teddy Kent was doing another show in Montreal. Nothing important--but now, it didn't matter. Dean realized that he had been waiting for a signal that might never come.

He didn't know quite what had happened between Emily and the Kent fellow. He didn't care to know. Knowing Emily--and Dean did--it was a matter of pride, and nothing anyone could say, except Kent, would make her relent in whatever quarrel they had gotten themselves into. Emily wasn't the sort to be the first to make amends. He didn't know Kent well enough to be able to discern what his problem was--but he did know that if he hadn't made love to Emily yet if she desired it as much as she had that day she had broken her engagement to him, Kent was, in the end, a fool. They were both fools. The whole world was full of fools, and he, the crooked one, was the only sensible, sane member of the human race. He laughed at the thought.

"Amon!" he called, his desk suddenly a flurry a papers. His voice was loud and demanding, but Amon was used to it. "Amon, for heaven's sake, where are you when I need you boy? Here! Amon!" He'd jumped out of his chair to go after the boy when Amon himself stumbled inside. "Well?" Dean demanded, emerald eyes flashing.

Dean Priest was not a little intimidating when he looked like that. Some in the local Egyptian town said he was possessed. He was not very tall, but his hunched back lent him a looming aspect, and his eyes were that sharp, luminous color that were especially suited to the word 'flashing'. Not to many an errand boy--not even many adults--were known to hold up under that gaze.

Amon, however, was one such errand boy. He merely gave Dean a crooked grin. "Apologies, Si Priest. Mother needed the laundry hung. Keep me clean, you know."

Dean gave the boy a measuring gaze. It was, he supposed rather unfair to call the boy from his home at all hours and expect him to run his errands. But Amon lived next door, and since hiring the boy to do a couple odd jobs around the house a couple months ago, he had gotten used to the company. Dean continued pursing his lips and giving Amon--who continued grinning--a piercing stare, but his tone was conciliatory when he said, "I need a telegram delivered. Take this to town at once, do you hear? I will give you seventy piastres for it--plus the fee, of course . . . plus that new pocket-knife you want." Dean held up a finger and cocked his head. "Don't try to deny it; I've seen you eying Horus' shop window."

Amon's nose scrunched as he scuffed his bare toes on the ground. " Mother . . ."

"There are some things mothers never have to know," Dean said succinctly, and dropped the money and the telegram into Amon's hand. They shared a grin, that time, and Amon ran for the door. Almost outside, the boy stopped, and turned half around. "Where's the wire going to?" he asked.

"Montreal," Dean said, and turned away.

* * *

Teddy had left his easel, frustrated, hours ago. The paint was still under his nails and his mind was still buzzing with shapes and colours, but he refused to think of the canvas. At times like this, he concieved his most brilliant paintings. Times like this were also the times he couldn't get Emily off of his mind, and he wanted her _out._

__A school friend from Blair Water had come up a week ago, and the first thing he had said was, "Gee, Ted, that one looks like the New Moon girl. Come to think of it, Ted . . . they all sort of look like Emily Starr."

Teddy didn't have very many friends from Blair Water; his mother hadn't wanted him to have very many friends period, but Leonard had been passing through Montreal, seen his work, been impressed, and decided ring up that lonely boy who's mother had been so strange. Of course, Teddy had been told eight hundred and nine times too many that his paintings resembled a certain starry eyed girl he didn't want to think of; only this time, he hadn't thought to shield himself against the mention of her name because the visit had been so unexpected.

He had tried to exorcise Emily from his work. He had tried to paint other things, to capture other souls. He had even tried with other women. But in the end, the only paintings with any life in them were those portraits that had a hint of her looking out from her. Even his sketches of old men, of country-side and water falls, had a hint of her shape somehow. It haunted him in a way she couldn't have managed had she ever consciously tried.

And why hadn't she tried? Why had she toyed with him? Played so hot and cold? Why, in heaven's name why, had she never answered that letter? . . . his whistle, their whistle?

Teddy threw his pen onto the stack of bills and letters at his desk. He was making his heart hurt, and that always made him want to paint. And yet he didn't want to paint. He wanted Emily, to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her, to make love to her and taste her, to hear her sweet voice and share his dreams of life with her in a way only she could understand and make possible . . .

But she had made it impossible. He hated her, for that. He would not give her an inch now even if she knocked on his apartment door this very moment--

Teddy was startled out of his venemous thoughts by a knuckle tapping on the side of his door frame. "Hey genius," a voice said, opening the door. Teddy sighed, seeing that it was only Leonard, the visitor from Blair Water. He was crashing at Teddy's for the week--Teddy had refused to let him pay the expenses of a hotel after learning Leonard had extended his visit to Montreal to 'meet the artist', as it were. Leonard was still in college, the typical student--here, there, everywhere, flippant and idle, and for the most part, he and Teddy were polar opposites.

Too often this past week Teddy had been absorbed in work--far too often to catch up with events back home, had their really been any 'catching up' to do with someone he knew so little as he knew Leonard. But still, Teddy liked having someone around, and Leonard liked having a place to kick back, and Teddy hated it but liked the fact that Leonard somehow still had the capacity to remind him of Blair Water. . . of home . . . of Emily. Even if he did have to go bring up the fact that his paintings looked like her.

"This came for you." He tossed Teddy a folded piece of paper, and sauntered into the room, draping himself on Teddy's chair. "I know you're busy doing artsy things, but it's all important looking. And look, anonymous. Don't get many of those."

Puzzled, Teddy opened the telegram, studying it for an address before he read:

DESIST IN THIS CHILDISH MOPING AND MARRY STARR IMMEDIATELY OR I SHALL HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DRASTIC STOP

Teddy had to swallow several times before he could blink; it was as if all his organs had to work separately--his heart could beat once and then he could breath, and the it could beat again . . . Marry Emily Starr? For how long had that dream been buried?

The telegram was from Perry, of course. Only Perry would be so . . . succinct about it. The man would never be called eloquent, but he had a way of getting a point across that was envied by politicians country-wide. There had been no anger in him at Perry and Ilse's marriage, once he had gotten over the shock of it, and in time the three of them had become friends again. It didn't really surprise him that the Millers, but putting their heads together, had realized Emily was who he had always really wanted.

What surprised him utterly was that they seemed to think Emily would have him.

Something washed over him, then, something that felt like the dream he had had that had made him miss the _Flavian, _something that felt like her voice had sounded, calling him from miles away that night she had been locked in the church. Teddy was thinking of Emily--not in the harsh, bitter, desperate-to-forget-her way that he always thought of her now, but in the way he used to think of her: soft, loving, understanding, dreamy, and completely emphatically his. Teddy was thinking of Emily, and knew, somehow, that she was thinking of him.

That she, in fact, loved him. He had just needed something--or someone--to jolt him into it, and he immediately realized they belonged together.

"Where are you going?" Leonard asked, standing abruptly as Teddy dropped the telegram and rushed around the room.

"Home."

"What? Today? I'm going on the train Monday; why don't we just--"

"Right now," Teddy said. And then he was out the door, with only fare for the train in his pocket and his coat on his back.


End file.
